April 18, 2003

Space and Place, The perspective of experience

This book seems to have been around for 25 years already. I was in the midst of an internal brainstorming ecstasy about the reasons why we become so emotionally attached to places (either geographical or virtual), when I suddenly run into this book in a bookstore in San Francisco. The author, Yi-Fu Tuan, in the first chapters covers a whole spectrum of different interpretations of "space" and "place", how different cultures view, experience and understand them. Later on he adds the concept of time and how the three of them interact with each other. It talks very cleverly about how we are oriented in space, place and time, how is it that culture influence our conception of that. Tuan suggests that "space" is freedom and "place" safety. Although space will be eventually transformed into a concrete place as it acquires definition and meaning. A big factor he points out that will contribute in that transformation is how intensive, sometimes intimate and valuable are the experiences we live in those spaces - not how long we stay in them. It is definitively a very inspiring piece and although it wasn't written contemplating virtual spaces, you can clearly see the big connection throughout every chapter. more at amazon more on Yi-Fu Tuan